Magic: The Gathering C/D

yeah i've had that happen with a Snapcaster, I had to tell the guy "hey uhhh, back up, this thing is worth money" (I'd feel like shit otherwise)one of the great things about the first couple weeks of a set's release is that some people really just don't read all the cards, I got an Ulvenwald Tracker Pack 1 as a 7th pick, which is insane, the guy's even better than Daybreak Ranger

haha i pulled a vexing devil in my sealed pool last saturday and was really surprised to find out it was worth decent money for some reason i thought it was still like a $4 rare...

i was really bummed though cuz i left the cards i wasnt playing with behind on the table after a match and by the time i realized what had happened someone had scooped them up :// nothing supervaluable but it sucked nonetheless

I haven't played since Ice Age, but downloaded the Magic 2013 Duel of the Planeswalkers for ipad and it's slowly coming back to me, even though the cards are all new. Has anyone else tried the app? Or are you all physical cards only? I haven't paid to unlock it yet but would do so if there were people that played.

I'd prob prefer a version w/ less sparkles but I think the 'unlock cards/decks/etc' actually seems like a pretty good way to go about an ipad game. I'll def drop 10 bucks on it. you can hit me up whenever. do you know if you can play with internet randos too?

I just played one w/ a stranger (won, obv). it's pretty good, I think. it allows you to connect to a random person or someone you know. no chat feature but the game played well and quickly.

overall I think this is a great app. the not-insignificant drawback is the limited supply of decks / the limits to deckbuilding and the fact that most of the decks are pretty straightforward and creature heavy. some of the more interesting dynamics of the game aren't around w/ the cards available...makes it easier for the app to do most of the gameplay work for you (w/r/t tapping, life, drawing, etc.). sometimes the fact that it's so automatic can make it hard to do something more nuanced, tho.

as far as playing a random game of magic w/ a stranger or decent-AI, it def works well and looks good.

maybe i'll get this. how does it feel re: touch interaction? do you tap cards w/ finger to tap them, or do you actually do turning motion on screen? also, is it a stress to read the cards or does stuff look pretty big (w/out cluttering screen)? cause that program we used (i forget what it's called) was such a pain to try and read what every card did.

you can easily make a card bigger by clicking on it. you rarely tap stuff yourself, it taps mana for you, you're mostly just dragging stuff across or onto the playing field. I've never been in a situation where it'd matter what lands get tapped (almost all the decks are single color) but I'm curious if it knows enough to give you options.

one problem is there's no 'go back' feature if you accidentally tap the wrong thing, which can happen w/ a pretty fastpaced game. but as far as ipad-ness goes, the game works really well.

iirc there is only one. but you can dl the free version and play around to get a feel for what the $10 game is. I think they have constructed the game sorta-purposely so that the frustrating moments are less likely to arrive to begin with.

the thing that's come closest to scratching my shandalar itch is magarena - the AI is *really good* and with the right cube there's an amazing feeling of "all bombs all the time" and every card is joyously unfamiliar if you haven't played since 2001 or whatever.

but still shandalar o man that game was just so amazing. let's quit our jobs and remake shandalar guys.

yeah I remember that. the AI in this isn't perfect, but it's pretty good all things considered. like it sometimes misses the higher level thinking moves but doesn't do anything completely inexplicable.

i guess i'll have to give this thing a try then. i'm already getting big into Magic Online - the "draft anytime" thing really is neat, and I'm doing well enough in AVR that I don't have to redeposit, so to speak

yeah i play on Magic Online a bit - my favorite thing about it is that they can randomly bring back old draft formats that are long out of print in paper. they've got Invasion block drafts up right now which was a great format that i would never have gotten to play again otherwise

i dig MTGO (its easy once you get past the state-of-1998 interface they got), and yes that is exactly what i love about it. plus the cube randomly coming and going is pretty nice. also it's so easy to unload everything you don't need; you don't really get taken advantage of the way you do in real life

the avatar is ridiculously expensive (like 15 tix!), but yes it's definitely the second coolest thing (after the drafting). I don't have one yet but my buddy has it so I'm pretty familiar with it. Sucks getting Phage at 7 though :(

depends what you want to do. I started w/ 50 tix which seemed steep but I've managed to wring some 20+ drafts out of that, and I still have like 20 tickets, 6 packs, and a bunch of cards to unload. if you want to do Standard it's fine, most cards are like 30-50% of their paper value, so it's not a huge investment. of course chase mythics are worth about the same as they are in real life (sadly)

so far there's nothing too exciting in there otherwise (Thragtusk seems really good in this meta, and that mythic dragon is probably the best tournament-level dragon ever printed, at least among ones you actually want to attack with), except A) they seem to strongly hint that duals will be back next set in some capacity and B) so far, no Mana Leak

yeah i went 4-0 last night at a local draft and have won the last couple of 8-4s i played. it seems like an easier format than DII because there are fewer decks or potential lines of play? i mean im also probably just better at magic atp too but thats how it feels rn

Well DII was definitely very interesting because certain cards' values were completely different depending on what kind of deck you got - the 1B 2/1 flying can't block guy (Interloper?) was incredible in R/B vampires and almost unplayable in U/B zombies. I haven't really seen that in a draft format before. AVR is more about exploiting synergy between specific cards; Thatcher Revolt and Flowering Lumberknot are the two big examples, but really there are a lot of 2-card combos with just commons and the occassional uncommon. Soulbound obviously influences this a lot. I still think it's skill-intensive (every draft format is) but there are a lot of bomby plays with no real answer (Goldnight Commander + Thatcher Revolt comes to mind)

My son and I played a bunch of MTG this weekend. We are both neophytes with a biggish collection of random grab bag cards. I'd like to add something fun and not too expensive to our collection but am bewildered by the options. What should I get?

I think there are a lot of "beginner" sets out there. Core sets are usually good for this as they can be fun w/o much complexity. If you're just looking for cards, most stores will have bulk commons that you can get for cheap, especially if you're at a place where people draft a lot.

On a related note, all of M13 has been spoiled, and it seems intentionally weaker than the last few sets - Ponder, Mana Leak, and Cancel are all gone (nerfing Delver), BoP is gone (huh?), and there seem to only be a couple of chase rares (Thragtusk, the new Ajani, and the 5/5 haste dragon). Actually I'm kind of excited to see what this does to Standard in 3 months.

xp pick up some of the duel decks! they have some very cool mechanics, neat interactions, and when you're bored w/ the deal makeup, you can pull out the powerful cards (generally some planeswalkers + other interesting pieces) and put them in new decks. i particularly like the Ajani Vs Nicol Bolas decks if u can find them.